


highest fall you'll ever grace

by tardigradeschool



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Temporary Character Death, The Stolen Century, mild violence, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 21:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12329538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardigradeschool/pseuds/tardigradeschool
Summary: Barry's always been accident prone. Somehow, being in constant danger doesn't do much to help this tendency. (There's a kind of irony in being a necromancer that dies a lot.)





	highest fall you'll ever grace

**Author's Note:**

> title from bastille's "icarus"
> 
> apparently all i write about is barry bluejeans and death so i'm just going with it now

Barry dies for the first time in fourth cycle. They’re facing off against some displeased trolls, and Barry is too slow getting out of the way. The last thing he sees is the wall coming up towards him and then he’s being threaded back into his recorded state. 

Magnus tackles him with a hug as soon as they’re solid again. “That was fucking gnarly!” he exclaims. “Your brains were all over the cave, dude.”

“Gross,” Barry says, looking around. Taako is shaking off the effects of being remade, Lup is checking the equipment, and Lucretia is already reaching for her notebook. “You guys get the Light?” There were about three months left when he died, but they had been close -- so close! -- to getting it back.

“No,” Davenport says grimly. “We couldn’t save them.” Merle puts a hand on his shoulder, which Davenport shrugs off. “We’ll orbit for a few days,” he says. “Then we can touch down on this plane.” He nods at Barry. “Good to have you back, Bluejeans.”

“Good to be back, Cap’n,” Barry tells him. And it isn’t a conscious thought so much as an impression that imbeds itself in the back of his mind: dying isn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

 

Barry dies again in the sixth cycle; he and Merle are on the wrong side of a splintering cliff. He sees Lucretia’s alarmed face as the grounds beneath them cracks, and he barely has a second to be nauseous at the sudden shift before he’s plummeting down. He doesn’t remember hitting the ground. 

It takes him a second to get his balance when he comes back into being, and Lup grabs his arm to keep him from tipping over. “Careful there, humpty-dumpty,” she says. On the other side of the room, Lucretia is embracing Merle. “One great fall is enough, don’t’cha think?” Her eyes crinkle at the edges when she says it, and Barry finds himself smiling back.

 

Barry dies again that year, this time helping villagers prepare for the Hunger’s attack. The Light was safe with them, but there was still a lot to be done; getting supplies underground and people as safe as possible. The Hunger comes an hour earlier than they were expecting, and Barry doesn’t even realize he should have tried to get back to the ship until he sees it lifting off. 

_ Thanks the gods,  _ he thinks fervently, watching the Starblaster shrink to a speck and then disappear. Around him, chaos rages. Barry helps the last townsperson down into the bunker with their two-year-old. Before he can follow them down the stairs, something tears through his shoulder, then stomach -- the Hunger’s tendrils have burst through his body, and when they retract, he tumbles down the stairs. 

There is a collective gasp as Barry topples in front of the group, landing in a crumpled heap, and the village’s best healer rushes forward to him. Barry waves her off; she should save her spell slots for the people that need them. She takes his hand. As everything goes black, Barry sees her mouth form the words  _ thank you. _

 

The fourth time Barry dies, it’s a disease that gets him. Lucretia and Magnus have it milder versions of it, but for some reason Barry is hit the hardest of the three humans. He starts noticing symptoms about a month in, same as the other two, but when they start to improve after three weeks, Barry gets worse. In their quarantine -- which is mostly to prevent Magnus from using up too much energy -- Lucretia writes and Magnus knits. Barry can’t even think. When Magnus’s hands get tired from the needles, sometimes he comes over and pets Barry’s hair. Sometimes the others come by to keep them company, most often Lup and Merle.

“You’re burning up,” Magnus tells him, on the day when Davenport finally concedes to letting them leave the Starblaster. Lucretia has gone outside to enjoy the sunny day, but Magnus, to everyone’s surprise, has stayed inside with Barry. His big hands feel cool on Barry’s skin. 

“Yeah,” Barry agrees hazily. “Wonder if this is how my father felt when he was dying.” It had been a fever that killed Barry’s father too, and in his current state, he forgets slightly than this death is not permanent. He is not feeling any particular emotion, or at least he doesn’t think he is, but a tear sneaks out the corner of his eye anyway, leaving a cold track down Barry’s temple. 

“Dying?” Magnus says, surprised, then adds firmly, “No one said anything about dying.”

Barry falls asleep after that, and two days after that, he does die. Barry does not remember a thing, and when he thinks of that conversation later, he will be unsure if he imagined it. 

 

It’s a blur, really, he swears it is -- there isn’t enough time to shout  _ get down  _ or cast a blocking spell. All Barry can do is step forward and then stagger back when the curse hits him square in the chest. Barry crit fails his saving throw. At least it’s quick.

Barry also does not dodge the punch Lup throws his way when he comes back to life; she hits him right in the jaw. “Asshole,” she says, furious in a way that isn’t a joke. “I don’t want you saving me if it means you die, numbskull.”

“Got it,” Barry says, rubbing the sore spot. “I’ll make sure we have a lengthy discussion next time about whether or not it makes sense for me to try to keep you from getting cursed.” Here’s the truth: he would have done it for anyone on the crew. Really, he would. But there’s something in Lup, something bright and  _ good _ that every world needs more of. So Barry is not going to apologize.

Lup moves towards him again and Barry tenses, expecting another punch, but instead Lup wraps her arms around him. “You’re not forgiven,” she says. “But thanks.”

 

Taako’s breath stutters as he drags in another gulp of air. His hands are shaking badly now, and he’s given up any pretense of helping Barry keep pressure on his wound. “You need to fucking go, my dude,” he says, and they both pretend that the tremors in his voice are because of the blood loss. “If you run you can get back to the Starblaster in time.”

“Not without you,” Barry says. He’s known Taako for twenty-two years, and he knows faked bluster in his voice when he hears it. “They can get off the ground without me. I’m not going to leave you here alone.”

Taako laughs, sharp and just this side of hysterical. “It’s your funeral,” he says. “Literally. Dying here with me isn’t going to get you in with my sister, you know.”

“You sure?” Barry asks. “Bet you a gold piece she hugs me first when we get back.”

“Oh, you’re on,” Taako says. His eyes lose a little of their distant look. “You know I’m on the Blup train, but there’s no way you’re winning this one.” He coughs from somewhere too deep in his chest, but either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “You’re going down, my man.” 

The Hunger descends, as they knew it was going to, and the only sign Taako gives of gratitude or fear is his hand tightening over Barry’s wrist.

Lup grabs both of them and pulls them in when they reappear on the Starblaster, and Taako mouths at him over Lup’s shoulder,  _ That was a tie at best. _

 

Barry drowns in the twenty-fourth cycle. It doesn’t matter that he knows how to swim now; he couldn’t have stayed afloat in that storm anyway. 

 

“You feeling alright?” Magnus asks when Barry reforms after the twenty-eighth cycle. “Sometimes when I’m dead for more than six months or so I feel all stiff when I come back.”

“It was only four months,” Barry says, stretching his arms over his head. 

Magnus frowns. “It was seven, wasn’t it?” He looks at the others. “I’m not going crazy, right?”

“Yeah, seven,” Taako says. 

Lucretia steps closer. “The Lobos took you, remember? And they don’t-”

“-take prisoners,” Barry finishes. “They do, actually. Sometimes. It turns out.” He finishes rolling a shoulder and glances up to see all six other members of the IPRE staring at him. 

“We didn’t know,” Davenport says softly. “Gods, Barry, we would have-”

“It’s not a big deal-” Barry starts, but Lup interrupts him.

“How’d you die?” she asks. There’s something hard in her face. Barry’s missed her so fucking much.

“It’s not important,” he says.

“How?” she repeats. She steps closer, almost threateningly, but Barry knows her well enough to identify it as directed at the people who took him.

“Starved,” he admits. “I think they meant to keep me around longer, but they were running short on food and I wasn’t telling them much, so.” 

There is a long silence. Merle puts a hand on his hip, probably an attempt at comfort. Lup doesn’t look away. Barry’s good at reading her by now, but he’s never seen this look on her face before. 

Taako steps through the stillness that’s fallen over the room, slots an arm over Barry’s shoulders and says,  in a voice that would be cheerful if it weren’t so sharp, “Let’s get some food into you now, huh? Lup, we’ve got supplies in the kitchen, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lup says, her gaze finally shifting over to her brother. “Yeah, we stocked up. What’s your poison? Soup? Mashed potatoes? You want waffles?”

“Waffles sound good,” Barry says.

“Then waffles it is,” Lup says, and if she delivers the line somewhat grimly, no one mentions it.

 

“Shit, shit, shit!” Merle exclaims, which is decidedly not reassuring when he’s examining a wound in Barry’s stomach. Barry’s had a potion for the pain, so it doesn’t feel like much, but he’s still conscious and Merle’s hands are covered in his blood. 

“That, uh, that going okay?” Barry manages. 

Merle blows out a breath. “I… I’m sorry, kid. Not sure there’s much I can do.” He sounds genuinely morose about it. “You might have to sit these last few months out, unless a spare miracle turns up.”

Merle seems to feel guilty about it, even after Barry comes back; he has coffee waiting for him on the table for the first month in the new plane they land in.

 

Lup’s face comes into focus as she leans over him to pick the enchanted lock the handcuffs suspended over his head. Some of her hair slips off her shoulder onto Barry’s face. Barry doesn’t mind; he’s been stuck in this dungeon for five weeks, and it’s nice to smell something that isn’t vague dirtiness. 

“Did, uh, did Taako make it out okay?” he asks, voice rough from disuse. Taako had been injured in the same attack that got Barry captured, and Barry was knocked out before he could tell how severely he was hurt.

Lup shakes her head, lips tight. “No.”

It hits Barry harder than it should when there’s only a month left. “I’m sorry,” he tries to say, but it turns into a cough. Some cold has worked itself deep into his chest in his time here, made worse by poor sleep and not enough water.

Lup squeezes his shoulder, not looking away from her task. “Careful, Bluejeans. I need you breathing when I get you back to the ship. I’m pretty sure you’re already concussed, it’ll just be embarrassing if you suffocate on the way back.”

“Aren’t the others here too?” Barry asks.

Lup shakes her head. “Just me.”

“What?” Barry says. “Lup, what were you thinking?”

“Cap’nport wouldn’t risk more than one person, since we’re already down to five. I barely got him to let me come.”

“He shouldn’t have,” Barry says. “It’s not that long, I would have come back in a couple weeks.” He coughs again, trying to avoid doing it directly into Lup’s face. 

“I would have come anyway,” Lup says. “Who’s he to tell me what to do? He’s not my dad.” The lock clicks and Barry’s hands fall free. She still looks tired, the way she always does when Taako is dead, but she grins at him. “Can you walk by yourself?”

“Probably not,” Barry admits. “My leg’s pretty fucked up. I think they cracked my knee cap.”

“Those sons of bitches,” Lup says sympathetically. “Let’s get you out of here.” She hauls him up, letting him lean heavily on her. “I’ll cast Levitate on you as soon as we’re out of this dumb magic blocking zone, okay?”

“Sounds good,” Barry says. The two of them take a cautious step together. Barry holds back a groan as his bad leg brushes the ground and pain shoots up his leg like electricity. “Lup, are you sure? You could still get out of here without guards noticing. Alarm bells are gonna start going soon.”

“Of course I’m sure, dummy,” Lup says. Her hand tightens on his hip, pulling him more sturdily upright. “I’m not about to lose you too.”

They step through the door. 

When Barry comes back to life the first thing he sees is Lup crash into Taako, launching into him from her recorded position. Taako staggers backward and both of them fall onto the couch. Everyone else is migrating into the kitchen; they’ve learned it’s the best policy for twin reunions. As he moves to follow the others, Barry hears, “Don’t fuckin’ do that to me again, okay?” and “Okay, nice one coming from  _ you _ ,” and “I  _ mean  _ it, Taako,” and then Lup grabs Barry’s shoulder just before he leaves the room, spins him to face her, and says heatedly, “And  _ you _ !”

“Yes?” Barry asks, confused.

“Why didn’t you say the doorway was enchanted?”

“I was concussed,” Barry says. “I wasn’t really doing my best detective work. I just assumed they never bothered closing the door because I was handcuffed and couldn’t do magic.”

“Shit!” Lup says. She pulls him in for a hug, so tightly he can feel her heartbeat. Barry tells himself that the reason this hug has reduced him almost to tears is because he went over a month without physical contact; he clings to Lup almost involuntarily. “That fucking sucked, my dude,” Lup says, chin still tucked over his shoulder. “I was doing my hero thing and then we went through the door and you just collapsed. Dead as a doornail. I couldn’t even get your body out of there because the guards were coming.” She lets out one warm breath into his shoulder before releasing him and offering him a sort of lopsided smile. “Let’s not do that one again, huh?”

“Good thinking,” Barry says. Lup kindly pretends not to hear his voice crack, pats him on the arm, and heads into the kitchen too.

Taako also pats him on the shoulder as he walks by. He offers him a much toothier and less kind grin. “You’ve got it bad, bucko,” he says.

 

The ice breaks beneath him. Barry’s always been shit at evocation, and so when he manages to pull himself out of the lake, the weak fire he manages to conjure is sorely insufficient to ward off the drowsiness falling over him. In the end, he feels warm, and it makes him think of her.

 

They’ve only been in the cave for five minutes when the dark figure looms up and tells them they have to die. It’s unfortunate, but about par for the course at this point. What’s extra unfortunate is that all three of them -- Barry, Lup, and an unconscious Merle -- are just about out of spell slots. 

It isn’t a creature Barry recognizes, but it seems like your standard cave monster, around twenty feet tall and possibly reptilian. It’s clearly supernatural, but Barry doesn’t see any evidence of inherent magic. Which is how Barry comes up with his idea.

“Wait,” he says, “Before you kill us, you should know I’m a very powerful wizard.”

The creature seems intrigued, but comments, “If you were really that powerful would you not have killed me already?”

“Okay, not right now,” Barry admits. “But after a rest. I am. I’m foremost in my field.” He pauses for effect. “Which is necromancy.”

The monster regards him. “Did you want to spend your final moments bragging?”

“I’ll work for you,” Barry says. “If you let my friends go.”

“An interesting proposition,” it says. “But I’m not really hiring.”

“You don’t have to pay me,” Barry says. “Just let my friends go on their way and I’ll work for you until I die.”

The creature makes a pleased noise. Lup clears her throat. “Hey, Barry, quick sidebar? Excuse us,” she tells the monster, then pulls Barry over to the side. “The fuck, dude?”

Barry makes sure his body is blocking the creature from seeing, then signs in thieves’ cant,  _ It’s not a bad grift, is it? There’s only five days left. _ “It can clearly overpower us,” he says aloud. “But I’m amazed by this creature.”

Lup signs back,  _ Why you? It might eat you.  _ “But what will we do without you? You’re the hardworking backbone of our group.”

_ Five days,  _ he reminds her,  _ The rest of the crew needs Merle, once he can heal people again. And it can’t know you have magic, or it might want you too. Merle can’t get back on his own. _ “You’ll just have to go on without me. I feel an overwhelming loyalty to it already.”

Lup sighs.  _ I don’t like it, _ she signs. Out loud, she says, over-acting just a little, “I don’t know what we’ll do without you, but I can’t stop you from staying, o wizardly one.”

Thieves’ cant is not widespread enough to have words that don’t relate to specific areas of interest, but when Lup hugs him goodbye, she signs what Barry thinks is a modified sign for family into the back of his neck. 

By the time the Hunger comes, Barry’s back is sore from sleeping on the cave floor, and he’s worn out from the rituals it took to impress the creature with bringing rats back to life. The creature dies instantly in a rockfall, Barry close behind.

 

Barry will be the first to admit it was bad planning on his part. Experimentation should not put the scientist at risk. But there had only been a month left and Barry had wanted so  _ badly  _ to know what would happen. And in his defense, none of his (admittedly limited) preliminary tests had indicated that the chemicals would be quite that explosive.

Davenport calls him over after the reset, actually draws him into the engine room. Barry is a little worried that something horrible happened while he was dead, and sits down obligingly when Davenport gestures for him to move closer. 

Davenport smacks him upside the head. “Barry Bluejeans,” he says. “I cannot fire you because I would see you next year anyway and because we need you on this team. But know this: under normal circumstances, if one of the people I was supposed to be in charge of took such a senseless risk, they would be out in seconds. It’s absolutely unacceptable. Understand?”

“Yes,” Barry says, a little ashamed, and then because he’s spent too much time around Magnus to know when to keep his damn mouth shut, he adds, “But it was only a month, uh -- sir?” He vaguely remembers calling Davenport that around forty years ago, but it seems appropriate now.

Davenport looks unfazed and just as tired. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a year or a day,” he says. “What the  fuck do you kids not understand about  _ the universe might depend on us _ ? We can’t get sloppy. Barry, what if-- what if the rest of us had died and you weren’t there to get the Starblaster out of there because you took a dumb chance? I expect this shit from Magnus, but from you?”

“Sorry,” Barry says, feeling legitimately chastised now. 

“Don’t be sorry, be better,” Davenport says, which is actually pretty shitty to hear, but the effect is negated slightly by the fact that Davenport pulls him into a brief, rough hug directly after. 

 

“The book the locals gave us said its bite was fatal,” Lucretia says. “Barry, I’m so sorry.” They’ve only been in this world for four months. This was supposed to be a two day trip away from the Starblaster.

“Well, my ankle feels okay right now,” Barry reasons. “Maybe my alien biology gives me an advantage.”

A few hours later, Barry is paralysed to the chest. Lucretia sits beside him, getting up occasionally to tend to the fire. “You can say I told you so,” Barry tells her.

“I wish I couldn’t tell you so,” Lucretia says. “The others are going to be so pissed I let you die.”

Barry squeezes her hand. Lucretia always looks younger at night; in moonlight it’s easier to see the face of the twenty-one year old she was when they left. In the grand scheme of things, Barry knows that being six years older than her doesn’t mean much now that they’re both over fifty, but he can’t help but feel like an older brother sometimes. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says. He’s starting to feel sleepy now, in a way that would make him wary if he could concentrate. Lucretia must see it in his face, because she leans down and presses a quick kiss to his forehead.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I mean, it’s not -- it’s not fucking okay, but.” She exhales sharply. 

“I’ll see you next year,” Barry tells her. “Tell Lup -- well, tell all of them -- that I’m sorry.” There are excuses for the slip-up on his tongue: Lup will have to bear the brunt of their shared research for the next nine months, he forgot to tell her something important, Lup specifically told him to be careful. They’re all true. But Barry’s so tired and he’s been in love with Lup for at least ten years, if not more, and it seems like too much to try and pretend he hasn’t been.

It shouldn’t have been so easy to love her. Easy, he supposes, is relative; it isn’t easy to live the way they do, but they don’t have a choice. Loving Lup is a choice in theory, but it’s so entrenched in the love he feels for all the crewmembers and so deeply inevitable that he can’t imagine not doing so.

Lucretia -- she was always brilliant, sweet Lucretia -- understands even if he hadn’t meant her to. “I’ll tell her,” she says, and if Barry sees tears in the edge of her eye as everything fades out, he tactfully doesn’t mention it.

 

There are four of them in the prison cell to start with: Lup, Taako, Magnus, and Barry. They sleep for five nights on the cold floor with Magnus in the middle, the twins tangled up beside him, and Barry on his other side. Magnus is huge and warm, and his arms make surprisingly comfortable pillows. With nothing better to do, they play games, trade dumb stories, wait to be rescued. It isn’t so bad. On the fifth day, some guards come and take Magnus away. 

They don’t sleep that night, Lup pacing the perimeter of the cell, Taako watching everything from a corner, meditating on and off. Barry feels himself drifting off as they approach the morning. Sleep deprivation normally doesn’t do him in like this; he once studied for two and a half days straight. But he hasn’t eaten much and the stone walls chill the whole room, and Barry is quickly approaching exhaustion.

It’s Lup who takes him by the shoulders and pulls him onto the floor between herself and her brother, Lup pressed up against his back and Taako tucked under his chin. Barry doesn’t know if they sleep, but he does, for hours and hours; he wakes up only in the late evening to Lup screaming. 

Magnus had left without a struggle because they still thought there might be a benefit to cooperating. Taako doesn’t get a choice; they stun him and paralyse the other two while they drag him out.

“You goddamn sons of bitch cowards,” Lup shouts down the hall once the door is closed. She rattles the bars, throwing her whole weight against them. “You better hope I don’t get my hands on you, I’ll fucking _ kill _ you if you so much as-”

“Lup,” Barry says, pushing himself to his feet. “We don’t know that Magnus isn’t fine.”

“If he was they would say so,” Lup says. “To make us do what they want. They haven’t even bothered lying about it.” She’s shaking with fury, and she gives the bars one last good rattle for good measure. “ _ Fuck _ .”

Barry reaches for her on instinct; neither twin is especially touchy, but it feels like the right thing to do, and Lup pushes back into him, burying her face in his no-longer-white shirt. Lup has never taken well to not being in control of a situation, and Barry tries desperately to think of something, anything he can say to make this marginally less shitty. They’ve cried in front of each other plenty of times, in the forty-odd years they’ve known each other, but this feels different somehow. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he settles on saying, with more confidence than he feels. “There’s only a few months left, and the other three had plenty of supplies when they took us. They should make it out fine.” Lup nods against him, seeming suddenly defeated. Barry wonders if there isn’t a spell on their cell to keep them tired. To keep them from fighting back.

They take Barry two days later. They figure out pretty quickly he doesn’t have any information for them either. And that’s that.

Lup boasts about killing the guards once the new year starts, embellishes her story with sound effects and cool one-liners Barry can almost believe she thought of in the moment. But she stays close by Taako’s side, and when she throws an arm around Barry’s shoulders later that evening, she keeps it there a long time. It makes Barry feel like he’s dying, but in a good way, and for the first time, he thinks -- _ maybe _ . 

 

The first time he dies after he and Lup get together, it’s only five months into the year. It really isn’t his fault this time; the locals swear that the net underneath their sky-town hasn’t broken in years, and ziplining wasn’t Barry’s idea. 

Still, Lup throws her arms around him wordlessly when he comes back, a desperation in her eyes he’s used to only seeing when Taako is in danger. Lup kisses his forehead, his temples, his cheeks, his nose, and Merle wolf-whistles at them. 

“I’m okay,” Barry laughs; she’s kissing his jaw and it tickles. “I’m okay, Lup, it’s all okay.”

“It is  _ now _ , easy for you to say,” she says, then kisses him for real. Distantly, Barry can hear Taako exclaiming in disgust and Lucretia shooing everyone out. Proximity to Lup is (and has always been, but it’s no longer tinged with guilt) overwhelming.

Barry gets an arm around her back, pulling her closer. “Maybe I should die more often,” he jokes, and she glares at him. Proximity to Lup is (and has always been, but it’s no longer tinged with guilt) overwhelming. It’s almost funny to have this much energy directed at him, until he considers what he would do if it had been the other way around. 

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” Lup says. “I’m serious, babe. Babe? Fucking don’t.” 

“No, I know,” Barry says. “Message received. No more death.”  Lup kisses him again, the kind of kiss that only happens when the crew is not in the room, and he amends, "Okay, maybe a little death," and Lup snorts very loudly.

 

Barry’s allergic to an alien fruit. Very allergic, as it turns out.

 

Barry is caught by an arrow in a battle he has no stakes in. 

 

Barry’s hair is a little longer than normal right now because Lup likes running her fingers through it. Barry likes it like this too, but he’s not crazy about the way this one guard’s grip on it is letting him yank Barry’s head uncomfortably far back. He’s blindfolded and his jeans are not doing much to protect his knees on the wet stone floor, so the angle of his neck is really all he has to focus on.

“I keep telling you,” Magnus says, frustrated. “I don’t fucking know the answer.”

“You sure?” Someone places the flat of a blade on Barry’s throat and he instinctively jerks away from the chill. The guard holds onto his hair even tighter.

“Yes, Jesus  _ fuck _ ,” Magnus says. It would sound like bravado if Barry hadn’t known him over fifty years. “Please, just let us go, we don’t have your goddamn information.”

The blade presses in closer. Barry very carefully does not swallow. “Well, then--” the guy begins.

Somewhere in the building, a door slams. The knife slips.

“Fuck!” Magnus yells.

At the same guy, the guard holding Barry’s hair says, “Oh, shit, man, I’m sorry, I really botched this one,” and the guy interrogating Magnus says, “Jesus, Daniel, can’t we go one fuckin’ torture sesh without you jumping the gun--”

Daniel has let go of his hair. The floor is unpleasantly damp on Barry’s cheek. He can hear Magnus grunting as he pulls against his chains, and then he can’t hear anything at all.

 

Barry touches a holy object he should not have touched.

 

Barry is cornered, and he fights back because he has the Light, and if he has to hurt these goons a little to save their whole world, then so be it. He doesn’t hurt them good enough.

 

Barry suffocates in a burning building, his third death in three years, and when he comes back, Lup is furious. Not with him, maybe, but that’s how it comes out sometimes. They’ve been theorizing about becoming liches for at least five years now, but Lup hasn’t talked about it in certain terms until now.

“We have to be careful,” he reminds her. “People go insane from this. There could be permanent consequences if we do it wrong. And I -- I think we have a better chance at doing it than anyone pretty much ever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make sure first.”

“Okay,” Lup says. “Yeah, I know. Careful. But listen to me.” She comes over to him where he’s sitting at his desk and gets down on one knee. “I don’t want to lose you. Ever again, if possible. I’m done with it. Got it?”

“Got it,” Barry says, at once a little hoarse. Lup’s expression softens, then, and she squeezes his leg before getting up.

“We’ve got work to do,” she says, and it is both very inspiring and very sexy.

 

“Are you afraid?” Lup asks him, when they both wake up far earlier than they mean to that morning. She’s curled up half on top of him and Barry is stroking her hair. She turns her head up to look at him. They’ve been in love for decades, the better part of a hundred years. Her face is the same as it was when they met, though Barry thinks it’s only gotten better as he’s gotten to know it more.

“No,” Barry says, and she blinks at him in surprise. It’s not insulting; he’s surprised himself. He’s a nervous man by nature, years of danger having only marginally calmed his disposition. Using a very risky process to become an undead creature should, by all rights, make him at least a little anxious. “I mean,” he clarifies. “I’m afraid of… change. But I’m not afraid of the choice we've made. Lup, this is the second surest I’ve ever been.”

Lup’s hand traces from his stomach to his shoulder, up to his jaw. She’s smiling now. “What’s the most sure?”

“What do you think?” He grins back, pulls her up towards him to kiss her, just once. “Are you gonna make me say it?”

“Nah,” Lup says. She looks away to rest her head on his chest again, and says, almost into his shirt, “No, Barry, tell me after.”

And that afternoon, Barry does these things in the following order: dies, takes Lup in his arms, and tells her that he loves her.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @mcgonagollygee on tumblr


End file.
